A Malifaux "Stitched Together" Proxy

 This was indeed originally a dried tea bag, to be used as a proxy figure for Wyrd Games' Malifaux 32mm tabletop skirmish game.


  Stitched Together are essentially sewn-together figures of leather/burlap filled with the bloody, rotting contents of their victims. There is a no-longer-manufactured line of white metal figures for these and plastic ones in development, but in the meantime I was racking my brain to try and figure out something to use/make as a stand-in proxy - I settled on one of my wife's tea bags that she was kind enough to "donate" to the cause.

  The exterior once dried was thoroughly sealed with slightly watered-down PVA glue to firm it up a bit and ideally prevent spoilage. I applied several thinned coats of paint in blood-esque colors to stain the lower portions and added shading a definition to things like the string and folds of the bag. I went back using Ben Komets' "loaded brush" technique to highlight and blend the upper portions so it would look less "fresh" and more weathered.


  Finally, I repainted almost the entire tag - the time frame from the Malifaux game is the early 20th Century, circa 1906 as of the most recent published materials - instead of "300 years of excellence" we now have "200 years" and thorough weathering after color matching and repainting was done.


 After it was all sealed with 2 layers of UV-resistant gloss and a coat of matte sealant, I went and used my go-to color for glossy fresh blood on the lower portion, for added nastiness.


Comments and feedback appreciated!

More Rasputina Work-In-Progress

 I managed to get a fair bit of work done on Rasputina yesterday and took pictures to see if anything looked out of place. I've given up on the face, it is what it is (one of my recent setbacks was painting her face and feeling like I'd ruined it) - gotten it to where it's "acceptable" to me and that'll do.

 I think the back of her coat - around the belt, small of her back, etc. - needs a bit more shading (I'm going to add in purple in deeper shadows across the figure to tie her in with the rest of the crew) but otherwise I'm fairly happy with how things have turned out so far.

 I'm still trying to come to grips with using a wet palette while also trying to play up her "cannibal" aspect with staining down her front (fur trim, front of coat, patches on the knees) without being over the top. I think the blending's turned out well with her skirt, coat, and pants (painted with a wet palette), while everything else was painted in my previous style.

Feedback would be appreciated!

A Wild Update Appears!

 My first attempt at painting since getting my cast off my wrist. I was trying to tidy up what I think was a horribly-painted face from a few months ago (prompting me to surrender), and I think it's not so bad now. I also added some stains and highlights to the fur trim. Going to get the rest of Rasputina done next.

 I'm aiming for a Russian Uniform green coat that will be shaded to blue, blood-stained fur trim/clothes, and a halfway-decent pale skin tone.

 I'm essentially trying to get an end result similar to Rasputina from the Wyrd Children of December box art, plus blood stains.

Feedback appreciated!

Rasputina Work-In-Progress

 Here's two work-in-progress pics of my Rasputina. I got tired of her sitting around getting no love, she's been at a standstill for at least a month due to a whole lot of Real Life(tm) stuff going on - not the least of which was the death of my wife's father, a great man who I loved very much.

1) I have no clue how these pictures are coming across since I'm still trying to figure out the best photo setup after our move to the new house - I would appreciate feedback on the clarity of the pics (the front picture is slightly different camera options than the back)

 2) I'm not really happy with how the face is turning out. I had to redo most of it after a painting accident (again, is detail even visible, or do I need to refine my picture-taking?)

  Oh, and there's not really much near completion outside of the face and fur trim(s) - the VMC Russian Green is pre-highlighted and I'm going for a look mostly like the Wyrd box art, just because I like it. Except there'll be more blood stains because, well, it's Rasputina and she's presumably a cannibal.

Feedback greatly appreciated!

A Tale of Malifaux Bloggers 2

For anyone who might be interested, there's a Malifaux blogging/painting motivational thing getting off the ground along the lines of the "Tale of X Painters" events from various sites.

I'm not personally going to be involved for a number of reasons (available time and non-compliance with the rules being two), but I figgered I'd put this out for anyone who's interested in Malifaux, has a blog of their own, and might want to get involved.

The organizing site/post is here: A Tale of Malifaux Bloggers 2
And on the Wyrd Forums here: http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/105889-tale-of-malifaux-bloggers-2/

First Two Daydreams - Final Pictures!

 Much like with the Malifaux Ice Golem, I got creative with Secret Weapon Miniatures' Crushed Glass Bundle with these Daydreams from The Dreamer's crew. I used a technique similar to building up the snow exploding out from underneath the Ice Golem's fist in order to build up what I'm intending to ideally look like a "barrier between worlds" - as if these guys are partly in the 19th Century real world and partly in Malifaux. I glued clear chunks of dried crushed glass/clear resin cut to shape as small upright pillars, and then filled in gaps and built up the shapes with additional coats of crushed glass/resin mixture. I went back with acetone over the "barrier" to melt it all back to translucency and applied a mixture of Yellow and Green Games Workshop Inks. To tone the saturation of the inks back a bit, I used a trick I read about elsewhere and brushed on household bleach along the top edges of the barrier to cut back the color a bit.

 

 The Daydreams themselves are the Black Friday sale release in translucent pink plastic, but at suggestion from my wife I went and washed them with SW Amethyst Wash and then a mixture of that wash and Vallejo Model Air Intermediate Blue directly painted into shade areas. I used leaf litter from Secret Weapon as well as Gale Force 9 static grass to round out a new "dirt" color recipe I tried.

 

 With these figures, I'm trying to tie most everything together color-wise: the wood planking is a new recipe, but it mixes in some of the steps from the dirt colors and is shaded with the same Amethyst as the figures themselves; the leaf litter, grass, and dirt are all washed with a GW brown wash color, same as one step in painting the wood planking. The only thing that doesn't tie in elsewhere is the green-yellow barrier, so as to stand out more.

 

 

Feedback and suggestions appreciated, as always!

Ice Golem - Final Pictures!

 The snow effect used on the base was achieved with Secret Weapon Miniatures crushed glass, presumably designed just for snow and ice effects - it's the Crushed Glass Bundle, which comes with "Realistic Water" resin to apply the loose crushed glass and seal it in place. I can actually sculpt it and layer it the same way I use my other basing materials. Great stuff!

I motivated myself toward getting final pictures of the finished Ice Golem:

 One thing I really liked when laying down the snow effect was that it was translucent - a first layer I mixed with white paint to represent solid snow; the second layer I left as-is for fresher snow. The best thing about it, I think, is the seepage of the Realistic Water around the edges, which makes it look like meltwater esp. on the edges on the base and the low mound on the paving. I used a less "wet" mixture for the outward-exploding snow (mostly cemented clumps of the previous white paint mixture), and just gave it a light coat of paint-free mixture to even things out.

 He's by no means showcase quality - I could've spent lots of hours on the ice crystal effect, say, and straight painted him entirely instead of using washes, but I was aiming ideally for speed. The most involved part was the highlighting and general tidying up. I really like how the eyes show up on the side-view pictures, since I used light flesh tone instead of white.

Comments and criticisms appreciated!

Translucent Pink Daydreams

I just wanted to show off a work-in-progress picture of the two Translucent Pink Daydreams I've been working on for the past little while. I got the Translucent Pink "Hide and Seek" set during Wyrd Games' Black Friday sale.

The figures are shaded, the bases are painted, and everything's sealed in several coats of different sealants so as to be safe on the table. I still need to finish decorating the bases to represent woodlands and a 19th Century orphanage/nursery split between worlds, but this is straight from my iPhone to the world.

Critique and suggestions appreciated!

Children of December Based and Primed!

I've got my old DIY spray booth set up and now have the base for the Ice Golem as well as the rest of the Children of December crew primed and ready to paint! They're all mounted on Secret Weapon bases, and although it took some finicky pinning with 20 gauge beading wire (couldn't use my usual paperclip method due to the ultra-tiny feet), they're all reasonably securely fastened.

I Can Has Pictures Now? (Malifaux Ice Golem)

It's taken me half a week to find the bracket to mount the old overhead lamp I had been using for my photo booth setup - just found it today! I took some proper pics of the Malifaux Ice Golem finally, which I've been chomping at the bit to do since GenCon last year and our subsequent move - could anyone tell me if the Golem is actually teal-tinged (as it should be) instead of entirely shades of blue?

A "Quick" Game of Malifaux

 This past trip to visit the in-laws, my daughter and I both took our Malifaux figures to occupy some time and to see if we could sneak in a "quick" game over the weekend. I had 2 copies of the rule book, I had my stat cards and we were both going to play crews straight out of Malifaux Crew boxes - hers being The Guild's Justice, and mine being The Children of December.

 It turns out that she had misplaced her stat cards - no problem, I figgered, I'll just make copies from the book. We didn't have a Malifaux-specific card deck - no problem, we'll just use a standard deck plus Jokers. We didn't have any scenery - a search for random objects made a passable selection to cover a 3'x3' area of table. We didn't have any way of keeping track of Soulstones or statuses - some rummaging produced enough glass beads that we had enough of both on hand (mostly the status changes would be effects from Rasputina's magic, near as I could figger - but, we had an assortment of colors, just in case).

 We set up the play area, alternated placing terrain (a la Warhammer 40K scenery rules), decided on a 30 Soulstone limit so as to allow for some Upgrades and an extra cache of stones for each of us, flipped for deployment (Corners) and settled on the Turf War Strategy - we opted not to pick Schemes, because at this point, we were already an hour into things with no game yet, and my 10-year-old daughter was starting to get bored.

 Here's a picture at the end of the First Turn - she decided on being Second Player after we flipped for Initiative, we both moved our models, and the next turn it looked like the action was really going to begin in earnest! Unfortunately, I had overestimated her patience and the amount of time we had - the game was about called "done" at that point.

Lessons learned:

Have everything together ahead of time - tokens (we had none), stat cards, models, and scenery.

If playing for the first time, smaller is probably better - neither of us we're really familiar with the rules, and we probably would've had as good a time taking a token model or two each (Minions, say) and just using those to get a sense for the different interactions.

Never underestimate the amount of time it takes to get set up - there invariably will be something lost, missing, or in need of clarification.

Have fun - I enjoyed myself, but I think it was more the anticipation of things to come as opposed to the actual game (which cut off abruptly and didn't quite pan out like we both had hoped.) if you have to go smaller or trim out stuff to get momentum going, that's probably better than the "boring stuff" dragging on due to lack of preparedness.

Know the rules - While I'd given the rulebook a cursory read, it wasn't anything near thorough enough to play a game.  She'd never actually read the rules, so it was up to me to introduce all the concepts ( most of which I was a bit shaky on to begin with).

Not the greatest first game but not a horrible one, either. Hindsight being 20/20, there's a lot of things I would've done differently - I suppose most of this holds true for any game system.

Status Update!

  My family and I moved to a new house and are still in the process of getting the place situated. My prior posts about GenCon were about the last regular access and hobby time I had. We've got everything completely moved and while my painting and hobby supplies take up about a quarter of the basement floor, it's not much resembling a "painting" area at the moment.

 That said, I'll be posting some stuff upcoming: better pictures of the Malifaux Ice Golem, the base I'm starting work on, the rest of the Malifaux Children of December crew, some quality supplies I picked up from Secret Weapon Miniatures while away at GenCon, and a few other odds and ends. I'm thinking I might do some actual product reviews (now that I have various odds and ends I could review) and I really want to get back into the posting of work-in-progress updates.

A lot of stuff in the works, and not enough hours in the day!

Malixfaux Ice Golem Finished - Pics Soon™

So - I survived #GenCon, managed to finish a piece for entry into the Gen Con MHE Painting Competition, and had a great time while there.

My Ice Golem wasn't ever really a competition piece, more a high-end "tabletop standard" that's the first painted figure of my crew for Wyrd Games' Malifaux and a color scheme test for the rest of Rasputina's Children of December entourage.

Much as I'd love to post awesome color-balanced pics of the finished piece, I've been working mostly back-to-back shifts since I got home and time has been scarce.

Soon... (and time also willing, maybe a step-by-step on the other Ice Gamin some time after!)

Frustration!

 I was trying to paint some more on the Malifaux Ice Golem and mixed in one of Games Workshop's new paints for a highlight and some color transitions.

 This is the first I've used this Ceramite White since I bought it about a year ago - turns out this generically-labeled white paint is essentially a brush-on primer. I've used thick white paints before - VMC White, for one, and Ceramite is something completely different. It even separates differently w/ my thinner mixtures and everything. Wishing I had never bought the crap.

 Unfortunately, I used it as the white base I added light blue into, and then spread to a few other palette wheels. If I wanted to paint with, say Elmer's Glue, it would've been nice to know I was about to do that before I did it. Oh well, it is what it is.

 Guess who's relegated his wannabe Gen Con MHE Painting Competition entry back down to a regular tabletop figure?

Pfft.

Malifaux "Children of December" Ice Golem II

 Here's phase two, after adding in more color to the Ice Golem. The photos don't do it justice IMO (do they ever?) in that it's actually more of a teal-ish blue than an outright green.

Comments and suggestions much appreciated! I'm painting him up for tabletop use, but since the Malifaux crews are so small and the figures are so awesome, I'm painting them up to as high a standard as I can manage and then I'll just seal the heck out of 'em. (Ought to be easy, as I plan on leaving the Ice constructs semi-glossy anyhow - not sure if that'd the be whole figure or if I go in and add gloss to just the flat ice parts, I'm still undecided.)

Malifaux "Children of December" Ice Golem

 I'm making a serious effort to get the 'Children of December' gang for Malifaux painted up, ideally all of them before GenCon 2014, but I'll take what I can get. I'm starting on the big Ice Golem first, and I've finally got a color progression that I like and hope will work out nicely in the end.

 That said, does anyone have any suggestions on painting something to look like translucent ice (or how to get the dark and sinister vibe of the crew box set cover, which I love)?

Two colors in from white primer on the Ice Golem, suggestions/comments appreciated! ( I haven't painted anything serious in a good six months or so, so be gentle...)